Olympic legacies and city development strategies in London and Rio; beyond the carnival mask?

Abstract

The need to ensure a lasting legacy has become an increasing part of Olympic rhetoric. While there is a body of literature which characterises legacy as part of the ‘carnival mask’ of neo-liberal urbanisation and evidence of a globalised urban policy, this article asks the question what can thinking with assemblage offer to a critical understanding of mega-events? The article addresses this question and responds to calls for urban theory to ‘see from the South’, by exploring how legacy has been assembled in two Olympic cities focusing on the role of ‘spatial practices of assemblage’, including city development strategies and global policy mobility. Drawing on empirical work in London and Rio, the article reveals that thinking with assemblage can contribute to a nuanced, yet still critical, understanding of legacy as a contradictory and contested concept which is constantly being made and remade through the contingent practices of Olympic city building. It can also suggest how legacy can be conceived and realised in ways that allow for alternative legacies and forms of urbanisation to emerge but that its potential can only be realised in conjunction with other critical perspectives.